The Lonesome West

[May 24th, 2006] [STAGE] Hotshot playwright and high-school dropout Martin McDonagh's The Lonesome West is about as ambitious as comedies come. It's the sort of play that the once-brilliant but now hackneyed Neil Simon might have written if he had spent his life as a drunken Irish ax murderer. The script itself has been described by many critics as The Odd Couple meets Beavis and Butt-Head. I beg to differ. A closer approximation would be the constant bickering of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Antigone cut together by the deadpan brutality of William S. Burroughs as performed by a cast of semiliterate Dublin cab drivers. Killing one's relatives and hacking the ears off dogs are the stuff of conversation in the town of Leenane.

The play, the third in McDonagh's Leenane Trilogy, is set in the squalid home of the disgusting Conner brothers. Having just murdered and buried their father, they spend their time tormenting each other and trying the faith of Father Welsh, the failing parish priest and coach of the barbaric under-twelves girls' soccer team. Michael O'Connell plays the much-put-upon priest with enough angst and alcoholic fervor that you understand why he does what he does by the end of the show.

Tim True, whom it seems you've seen in just about everything lately, plays the filthy and abusive Coleman, the elder of the brothers, with utter conviction. John Steinkamp is the fastidious and tight-fisted younger Conner, Valene, and Stephanie Gaslin is given woefully little to work with as Girleen, a teenage hooch peddler.

Director Slayden Scott has chosen Third Rail's first comedy well. The script is at once horrible and hilarious, a black-as-night exploration of the underbelly of brotherly love. You can tell from the first scene that it won't end well, as True and Steinkamp fling insults and pastries with a violence found only in the best of the worst families. It's a brilliant show, and would be completely unwatchable if it weren't so damn funny.

With just two shows under their belts, the members of Third Rail Repertory Theatre have already earned a strong reputation for producing politically charged, immaculately professional drama. Last year's Recent Tragic Events won five Drammy Awards, and their sophomore production, Dirty Story, suffered no shortage of praise. The Lonesome West definitely rises to the occasion. One quibble: The transitional music between scenes is unbearably loud. Be ready for it.